Warhammer: Filandra's Tears
by Spiritblade
Summary: [Slight AU, based on an original army list with history and story]: A Daemon Princess meets her former beloved, both of them damned by the cruel fates. Her final thoughts when she crosses swords with him for the last time.


_**A Warhammer Fantasy fanfic**_

_**Filandra's Tears**_

_**By Spiritblade**_

**Author's foreword:** I have created this story with inspiration from the FF8 story Tragedy written by Valensia of the community. I hope you have enjoyed it. Credit goes to him/her. The Dark Templars are an alternative army list I have created, and with the aid of my comrades, balanced. My thanks go to them. This story was once posted on years ago.

I see you stand before me now, as I have so many years before, when you were but a young man, and I was but a young woman. We were both so young then, full of hopes and dreams in a land that had forsaken such. I had such high hopes of us being together, of holding you in my arms when we became adults.

But, I look at you now, and I see that the hopes of us being together is long gone. You raise the massive greatsword towards me in challenge, wet with the blood of those you have slain. Have you chosen me to be the keystone to this grim world's hope for happiness?

Because, if so, I will gladly give my life to you, for now I know, that it means less than nothing. But I know that that happiness shall never come to you, for you wander in an endless labyrinth of questions.

You are a puzzle with a missing piece, forever destinied to be incomplete. You pretend that you are still like them, a mortal - no different from the elves, the dwarves, or the Dark Elves - they are still mortal; but, my dark angel, you no longer are. You will no longer stand amongst them. And yet, you still fight for them.

You are like a cavalier out of the legends of our homeland, protecting his warrior maiden, his beloved, from the dragon. But you are no knight. How can you protect your comrades when you cannot protect yourself?

Protect yourself from the lies that you make for yourself. You say yourself human, but your fangs and your thirst for blood and war is not human. You unleash a fury in battle matched only by Daemon Princes, and you feel the dark joy bubble in your soul as Soul Crusher rends apart flesh and armour, and the song of the dying is the melody of the finest musicians of the realm.

Do you know the tragic, twisted tragedy in all of this? We could have had everything, you and I. I would have been at your side as we watched the storms fade away and the blessed moonlight shine over the bleak lands of Ekyolan-Falaria. I would have tucked children into their beds - children with your dark hair and eyes, smiling blissfully in their sleep. I have sacrificed my dreams, Spiritblade, and I would give much, much more to have you again.

But no.

Instead, you choose them. The drow assassin, who flanks your right arm, clutching a great blazing runesword in both her obsidian fists, her beautiful features a mask of cold fury. To your left, is the tall and regal Angelqueen, white wings wet with blood that they were almost crimson. She is the mirror image of the drow in every possible way, and I know that when the drow drew the holy sword, she had created her counterpart.

And there is another. The daughter of the Everqueen, whose fiery heart and gentle spirit is the burning fire that burns in the amulet that hangs above your heart, holding back the Darkness in you, mingled and forged in the blood of the two who flank you. Together, they hold you from becoming a monster.

But, you yourself know that you are unworthy of them. How fascinating it is to see you now. You contemplate a future you see others have, and are capable of forging, and yet, you are incapable of. Even as I watch you, the eternal contemplator, you no longer see me as the reason you don't wish to. I am the enemy, you tell yourself, but I was once your childhood sweetheart. Had things been different, it would be I who would have been at your side - not the drow, nor the angel, nor the elven princess whose invisible eyes and prayers I know are meant for you.

But, you no longer see me as the one you once loved. No. You see me as the Daemon Princess I am now. Elevated by your father to this. I should blame you, but I cannot. I would not. I chose this, so as to use all my power to bring you back.

You reassure yourself that to slay me is the right thing to do, as if it would free me. Mayhaps it will, for Soul Crusher is more than capable of turning my soul to dust. Not even the promised immortality of the Daemon Princes is immune to its power. I find it fascinating that you now embody so many contradictions. You are the fearless hero killing with doubt in his heart. You are an Emperor with no title and no country. You are a warrior with no true strength. You are a Darkness with no shadow, and a fact without truth.

How do you see me, my beloved prince? Do you see me as the pathetic embodiment of everything you hate, everything that was taken from you? Am I a villain in your story with no plot?

Even if it is so, you and I are alike, my prince. For you, too, are a traitor. You have turned your back on your homeland, surrendering it to the Ruinous Powers, preferring survival over honourable death. You have sacrificed the sacred oaths to protect your homeland in the hopes of someday returning to pay the Traitors out.

You are a Kinslayer, for you now turn your blade upon those who were once your countrymen. Dark Templar or no, you and those who follow you and who lay dying in their multitudes outside this castle are still Falarians. You are a traitor, Sheik Muhammad Spiritblade, and a monster. How different are you from me, truly?

Your golden eyes flicker for an instant, and you hurl aside the heavy, armored form of a Chaos warrior with contemptuous ease. Have you read my mind? Have you opened your heart and soul to me, for this one instant?

Your armoured fist grips the hilt of your weapon, and I see that you are frightened, and that your are groping for answers in which you may never find an answer. You are wondering why I did this. Why, I, a daughter of the Twelve Founding Houses of Ekyolan-Falaria, would swear her soul to Chaos, and let herself be elevated to Daemon Princehood.

You are wondering why your family betrayed you, but your own hope to have one of your own is eclipsed by the fact that you fear that history may well repeat itself. You hate your father, but I know how much you want to stand by his side. You have broken a great oath, and replaced it with another. You would fight hard for the Light that despises you. Another contradiction.

But, you still refuse to give in. Yes, I could seduce you with rosy-coloured whispers and illusions of immortality and grandeur beyond the dreams of mortals. My foolish angel, I couldn't if I tried my hardest. You have dreams in which you are its sole ruler. Not even your brother, the Traitor Prince Rulakir, was like that. He wanted so much to be your better, wanted the confirmation that his dreams could come true, for he lacked the faith to believe in them.

But, you, my Prince, are devoid of dreams. Your golden eyes are cold and cruel as the dark elves of cold Naggaroth - and far more murderous. You direct your hard life with the compass of grim reality. As you gaze upon the families of your soldiers, of others, you realize that to have what they have is to damn an innocent infant with your curse. You gaze upon the skies, and see it as nothing but a sky, while to others, it is Heaven. To you, a well-decorated elven sword is not a finery, but a killing weapon.

But, not only that. You came from a sun-cracked desert, devoid of love and compassion. Your father was harsh to you, but you loved him, adored him as a son would a father. Without preamble, you set yourself to achieving the greatness your father had achieved. In blood, in sorrow and pain, you clawed your way up a mountain of corpses of both friend and foe. Lilith was the sheath to your sword - and though I despise her as much as I hate the Angelqueen - I did not want you to become as cold-hearted as some of our generals, living only for war and conflict. Ellesime knew of your blood-dark nature, but what does she know? She came from a happy childhood that is a far cry from yours.

But, you and I know one thing. We are Damned. There is no turning back. The crippled remain such, and the blind remain such. But what does it matter? If I am to die, it is best I die in your arms, and fulfill my dream. I only wish that it ended up both of us being old - in each other's arms, when Death himself comes to take us to our well-earned rest.

Your destiny, my dark brooding prince, is more tragic than mine. For when I die, so does my sorrows. But you, what will become of you, my black knight? You will continue searching for a fantasy. A fantasy of self-acceptance, of redemption, and of forgiveness. A fantasy which will see one of those three women - or one of the two? - in your arms.

I block your thunderous blows, and I am amazed at the power behind them. I sense the Archangel of Destruction behind you, her sorrowful anger lending power to your blows. You have become more skilled than the last time. Parn defeated you once before, but now I doubt he can. I parry and block and strike, and yet you turn aside all my blows. But it has never been in the stars for me to have you, nor win in battle over you.

My greatsword flies out of my hands, spiralling until it lands before the altar of the High Elven God Asuryan, landing a foot deep in blood-drenched carpets. You leap and strike me down, and the force is such that it pins me to the ground. I feel white-hot pain sear my soul, and tears of blood stream down my face as the sorrow I kept in my heart and soul poured out of me in that one instant. I gaze at you in that instant, and I was glad that the last sight in my unholy life was you, of a golden-eyed, black-maned lion of darkness.

You whisper the words, "I'm sorry, Filandra."

I know you are, my prince, but not for the reasons you think. If it had not been for you choosing Lilith over me, this battle would never have happened. True valor and love lies not in your sword, but in your heart and soul. You and you alone will always, be a villain in your own story.

And that is why, Spiritblade, your destiny if far more tragic than mine.

The last thing I feel and taste is the salty, steely taste of your tears. And I realize now, as I did not then, was that your sorrow was as deep as my own. For, you too, wept tears of blood. And then, the Final Darkness – Final Death, beyond the hand of any of the Dark Powers – takes me.


End file.
